STACK 

ANNEX 


085 

236 


QUAYLE 


THE  HERO  SERIES 


M  OftW.  IIBEAW,  WW  JUWELES 


7"  .//.£•    HERO    SERIES 


A  HERO 
JEAN  VALJEAN 


BY 

WILLIAM  A.  QUAYLE 

Author  of  "THE  POET'S  POET,"  Etc. 


CINCINNATI:      JENNINGS     &    P  Y  E 
NEW    YORK:      EATON    &    MAINS 


COPYRIGHT,   1902,  BY 
JENNINGS   *   PYE 


A   Hero 

Jean   Valjean 


HPHE  hero  is  not  a  luxury,  but  a  necessity. 
I  We  can  no  more  do  without  him  than  we 
can  do  without  the  sky.  Every  best  man  and 
woman  is  at  heart  a  hero-worshiper.  Emerson 
acutely  remarks  that  all  men  admire  Napoleon 
because  he  was  themselves  in  possibility.  They 
were  in  miniature  what  he  was  developed.  For 
a  like  though  nobler  reason,  all  men  love  heroes. 
They  are  ourselves  grown  tall,  puissant,  victorious, 
and  sprung  into  nobility,  worth,  service.  The  hero 
electrifies  the  world ;  he  is  the  lightning  of  the  soul, 
illuminating  our  sky,  clarifying  the  air,  making  it 
thereby  salubrious  and  delightful.  What  any  elect 
spirit  did,  inures  to  the  credit  of  us  all.  A  frag- 


2138108 


4  A  Hero 

ment  of  Lowell's  clarion  verse  may  stand  for  the 
biography  of  heroism: 

"When  a  deed  is  done  for  Freedom,  through  the  broad 

earth's  aching  breast 
Runs  a  thrill  of  joy  prophetic,  trembling  on  from  east 

to  west; 
And  the  slave,  where'er  he  cowers,  feels  the  soul  within 

him  climb 

To  the  awful  verge  of  manhood,  as  the  energy  sublime 
Of  a  century  bursts  full-blossomed  on  the  thorny  stem 

of  Time;" 

such  being  the  undeniable  result  and  history  of 
any  heroic  service. 

But  the  world's  hero  has  changed.  The  old 
hero  was  Ulysses,  or  Achilles,  or  JEneas.  The 
hero  of  Greek  literature  is  Ulysses,  as  ^neas  is 
in  Latin  literature.  But  to  our  modern  thought 
these  heroes  miss  of  being  heroic.  We  have  out- 
grown them  as  we  have  outgrown  dolls  and  mar- 
bles. To  be  frank,  we  do  not  admire  ^neas  nor 
Ulysses,  ^neas  wept  too  often  and  too  co- 
piously. He  impresses  us  as  a  big  cry-baby.  Of 
this  trinity  of  classic  heroes — Ulysses,  JEneas,  and 
Achilles — Ulysses  is  least  obnoxious.  This  state- 
ment is  cold  and  unsatisfactory,  and  apparently 
unappreciative,  but  it  is  candid  and  just.  Lodge,  in 
his  "Some  Accepted  Heroes,"  has  done  service 
in  rubbing  the  gilding  from  Achilles,  and  show- 
ing that  he  was  gaudy  and  cheap.  We  thought 


Jean  Valjean  5 

the  image  was  gold,  which  was,  in  fact,  thin  gilt. 
Achilles  sulks  in  his  tent,  while  Greek  armies  are 
thrown  back  defeated  from  the  Trojan  gates.  In 
nothing  is  he  admirable  save  that,  when  his  pout- 
ing fit  is  over  and  when  he  rushes  into  the  battle, 
he  has  might,  and  overbears  the  force  opposing 
him  as  a  wave  does  some  petty  obstacle.  But  no 
higher  quality  shines  in  his  conquest.  He  is  vain, 
brutal,  and  impervious  to  high  motive.  In 
^neas  one  can  find  little  attractive  save  his  filial 
regard.  He  bears  Anchises  on  his  shoulders  from 
toppling  Troy;  but  his  wanderings  constitute  an 
Odyssey  of  commonplaces,  or  chance,  or  mean- 
ness. No  one  can  doubt  Virgil  meant  to  create 
a  hero  of  commanding  proportions,  though  we, 
looking  at  him  from  this  far  remove,  find  him 
uninteresting,  unheroic,  and  vulgar;  and  why  the 
goddess  should  put  herself  out  to  allay  tempests 
in  his  behalf,  or  why  hostile  deities  should  be  dis- 
turbed to  tumble  seas  into  turbulence  for  such  a 
voyager,  is  a  query.  He  merits  neither  their 
wrath  nor  their  courtesy.  I  confess  to  liking 
heroes  of  the  old  Norse  mythology  better. 
They,  at  least,  did  not  cry  nor  grow  voluble  with 
words  when  obstacles  obstructed  the  march. 
They  possess  the  merit  of  tremendous  action, 
^neas,  in  this  regard,  is  the  inferior  of  Achilles. 
Excuse  us  from  hero  worship,  if  JEneas  be 
hero.  In  this  old  company  of  heroes,  Ulysses  is 


6  A  Hero 

easy  superior.  Yet  the  catalogue  of  his  virtues 
is  an  easy  task.  Achilles  was  a  huge  body,  asso- 
ciated with  little  brain,  and  had  no  symptom  of 
sagacity.  In  this  regard,  Ulysses  outranks  him, 
and  commands  our  respect.  He  has  diplomacy 
and  finesse.  He  is  not  simply  a  huge  frame, 
wrestling  men  down  because  his  bulk  surpasses 
theirs.  He  has  a  thrifty  mind.  He  is  the  man 
for  councils  of  war,  fitted  to  direct  with  easy 
mastery  of  superior  acumen.  His  fellow-warriors 
called  him  "crafty,"  because  he  was  brainy.  He 
was  schooled  in  stratagem,  by  which  he  became 
author  of  Ilium's  overthrow.  Ulysses  was  shrewd, 
brave,  balanced — possibly,  though  not  conclusively, 
patriotic — a.  sort  of  Louis  XI,  so  far  as  we  may  form 
an  estimate,  but  no  more.  He  was  selfish,  immoral, 
barren  of  finer  instincts,  who  was  loved  by  his 
dog  and  by  Penelope,  though  for  no  reason  we 
can  discover.  Ten  years  he  fought  before  Troy, 
and  ten  years  he  tasted  the  irony  of  the  seas — in 
these  episodes  displaying  bravery  and  fortitude,  but 
no  homesick  love  for  Penelope,  who  waited  at  the 
tower  of  Ithaca  for  him,  a  picture  of  constancy 
sweet  enough  to  hang  on  the  palace  walls  of  all 
these  centuries.  We  do  not  think  to  love  Ulysses, 
nor  can  we  work  ourselves  up  to  the  point  of  ad- 
miration; and  he  is  the  best  hero  classic  Rome 
and  Greece  can  offer.  No !  Register,  as  the  mod- 
ern sense  of  the  classic  hero,  we  do  not  like  him. 


Jean  Valjean  7 

He  is  not  admirable,  yet  is  not  totally  lacking 
in  power  to  command  attention.  What  is  his 
quality  of  appeal  to  us  ?  This :  He  is  action ;  and 
action  thrills  us.  The  old  hero  was,  in  general, 
brave  and  brilliant.  He  had  the  tornado's 
movement.  His  onset  redeems  him.  He  blus- 
tered, was  spectacular,  heartless,  and  did  not  guess 
the  meaning  of  purity;  but  he  was  warrior,  and 
the  world  enjoys  soldiers.  And  this  motley  hero 
has  been  attempted  in  our  own  days.  He  was 
archaic,  but  certain  have  attempted  to  make  him 
modern.  Byron's  Don  Juan  is  the  old  hero,  only 
lost  to  the  old  hero's  courage.  He  is  a  villain,  with 
not  sense  enough  to  understand  he  is  unattractive. 
He  is  a  libertine  at  large,  who  thinks  himself  a 
gentleman.  Don  Juan  is  as  immoral,  impervious 
to  honor,  and  as  villainous  as  the  Greek  gods.  The 
D'Artagnan  romances  have  attempted  the  old 
hero's  resuscitation.  The  movement  of  the 
"Three  Musketeers"  is  mechanical  rather  than 
human.  D'Artagrran's  honor  is  limited  to  his 
fealty  to  his  king.  He  has  no  more  sense  of  deli- 
cacy toward  women,  or  honor  for  them  as  women, 
than  Achilles  had.  Some  of  his  doings  are  too 
defamatory  to  be  thought  of,  much  less  men- 
tioned. No!  Excuse  me  from  D'Artagnan  and 
the  rest  of  Dumas'  heroes.  They  may  be 
French,  but  they  are  not  heroic.  About  Dumas' 
romances  there  is  a  gallop  which,  with  the  un- 


8  A  Hero 

wary,  passes  for  action  and  art.  But  he  has  not, 
of  his  own  motion,  conceived  a  single  woman  who 
was  not  seduced  or  seducible,  nor  a  single  man 
who  was  not  a  libertine;  for  "The  Son  of 
Porthros"  and  his  bride  are  not  of  Dumas'  cre- 
ation. He  is  not  open  to  the  charge  of  having 
drawn  the  picture  of  one  pure  man  or  woman. 
Zola  is  the  natural  goal  of  Dumas ;  and  we  enjoy 
neither  the  route  nor  the  terminus.  Louis  XIV, 
Charles  II,  and  George  IV  are  modeled  after  the 
old  licentious  pretense  at  manhood,  but  we  may 
all  rejoice  that  they  deceive  nobody  now.  Our 
civilization  has  outgrown  them,  and  will  not,  even 
in  second  childhood,  take  to  such  playthings. 

But  what  was  the  old  hero's  chief  failure? 
The  answer  is,  He  lacked  conscience.  Duty  had 
no  part  in  his  scheme  of  action,  nor  in  his  vo- 
cabulary of  word  or  thought.  Our  word  "virtue" 
is  the  bodily  importation  of  the  old  Roman  word 
"virtus,"  but  so  changed  in  meaning  that  the 
Romans  could  no  more  comprehend  it  than  they 
could  the  Copernican  theory  of  astronomy. 
With  them,  "virtus"  meant  strength — that  only — 
a  battle  term.  The  solitary  application  was  to 
fortitude  in  conflict.  With  us,  virtue  is  shot 
through  and  through  with  moral  quality,  as  a  gem 
is  shot  through  with  light,  and  monopolizes  the 
term  as  light  monopolizes  the  gem.  This  change 
is  radical  and  astonishing,  but  discloses  a  change 


Jean  Valjean  9 

which  has  re vol  agonized  the  world.  The  old  hero 
was  conscienceless — a  characteristic  apparent  in 
Greek  civilization.  What  Greek  patriot,  whether 
Themistocles  or  Demosthenes,  applied  conscience 
to  patriotism?  They  were  as  devoid  of  practical 
conscience  as  a  Metope  of  the  Parthenon  was  de- 
void of  life.  Patriotism  was  a  transient  sentiment. 
Demosthenes  could  become  dumb  in  the  presence 
of  Philip's  gold;  and  in  a  fit  of  pique  over  mis- 
treatment at  the  hands  of  his  brother-citizens, 
Themistocles  became  a  traitor,  and,  expatriated, 
dwelt  a  guest  at  the  Persian  court.  Strangely 
enough — and  it  is  passing  strange — the  most 
heroic  personality  in  Homer's  Iliad,  the  Greek's 
"Bible  of  heroisms,"  was  not  the  Atridae,  whether 
Agamemnon  or  Menelaus ;  not  Ajax  nor  Achilles, 
nor  yet  Ulysses ;  but  was  Hector,  the  Trojan,  who 
appears  to  greater  advantage  as  hero  than  all  the 
Grecian  host.  And  Homer  was  a  Greek!  This 
is  strange  and  unaccountable  irony.  Say  once 
more,  the  old  hero's  lack  was  conscience.  He, 
like  his  gods  and  goddesses,  who  were  deified  in- 
famies, was  a  studied  impurity.  Jean  Valjean  is 
a  hero,  but  a  hero  of  a  new  type. 

Literature  is  a  sure  index  of  a  civilization. 
Who  cares  to  settle  in  his  mind  whether  the  world 
grows  better,  may  do  so  by  comparing  contem- 
poraneous literature  with  the  reading  of  other 
days.  "The  Heptameron,"  of  Margaret  of  Na- 


io  A  Hero 

varre,  is  a  book  so  filthy  as  to  be  nauseating. 
That  people  could  read  it  from  inclination  is  un- 
thinkable ;  and  to  believe  that  a  woman  could  read 
it,  much  less  write  it,  taxes  too  sorely  our  credu- 
lity. In  truth,  this  work  did  not,  in  the  days  of 
its  origin,  shock  the  people's  sensibilities.  A 
woman  wrote  it,  and  she  a  sister  of  Francis  I  of 
France,  and  herself  Queen  of  Navarre,  and  a  pure 
woman.  And  her  contemporaries,  both  men  and 
women,  read  it  with  delight,  because  they  had 
parted  company  with  blushes  and  modesty.  Zola 
is  less  voluptuous  and  filthy  than  these  old  tales. 
Some  things  even  Zola  curtains.  Margaret  of  Na- 
varre tears  the  garments  from  the  bodies  of  men 
and  women,  and  looks  at  their  nude  sensuality 
smilingly.  Of  Boccaccio's  "Decameron,"  the  same 
general  observations  hold;  save  that  they  are  less 
filthy,  though  no  less  sensual.  In  the  era  pro- 
ducing these  tales,  witness  this  fact:  The  stories 
are  represented  as  told  by  a  company  of  gentle- 
men and  ladies,  the  reciter  being  sometimes  a 
man,  sometimes  a  woman;  the  place,  a  country 
villa,  whither  they  had  fled  to  escape  a  plague  then 
raging  in  Florence.  The  people,  so  solacing  them- 
selves in  retreat  from  a  plague  they  should  have 
striven  to  alleviate  by  their  presence  and  minis- 
tries, were  the  gentility  of  those  days,  representing 
the  better  order  of  society,  and  told  stories  which 
would  now  be  venal  if  told  by  vulgar  men  in  some 


Jean  Valjean  II 

tavern  of  ill-repute.  That  Boccaccio  should  have 
reported  these  tales  as  emanating  from  such  a 
company  is  proof  positive  of  the  immodesty  of 
those  days,  whose  story  is  rehearsed  in  the 
"Decameron."  Rousseau's  "Confessions"  is  an- 
other book  showing  the  absence  of  current  mo- 
rality in  his  age.  Notwithstanding  George  Eliot's 
panegyric,  these  memoirs  are  the  production  of 
unlimited  conceit,  of  a  practical  absence  of  any 
moral  sensitiveness ;  and  while  Rousseau  could  not 
be  accused  of  being  sensual,  nor  amorous  and 
heartless  as  Goethe,  he  yet  shows  so  crude  a  moral 
state  as  to  render  him  unwholesome  to  any  per- 
son of  ordinary  morals  in  the  present  day.  His 
"Confessions,"  instead  of  being  naive,  strike  me 
as  being  distinctly  and  continuously  coarse.  A 
man  and  woman  who  could  give  their  children 
deliberately  to  be  farmed  out,  deserting  them  as 
an  animal  would  not,  and  this  with  no  sense  of 
loss  or  compunction,  nor  even  with  a  sense  of 
the  inhumanity  of  such  procedure — such  a  man 
and  woman  tell  us  how  free-love  can  degrade  a 
natively  virtuous  mind.  Such  was  Rousseau;  and 
his  "Confessions"  are  like  himself,  unblushing,  be- 
cause shameless.  These  books  reflect  their  re- 
spective ages,  and  are  happily  obsolete  now. 
Such  memoirs  and  fictions  in  our  day  are  unthink- 
able as  emanating  from  respectable  sources;  and 
if  written  would  be  located  in  vile  haunts  in  the 


12  A  Hero 

purlieus  of  civilization.  Gauged  by  such  a  test, 
the  world  is  seen  to  be  better,  and  immensely  bet- 
ter. We  have  sailed  out  of  sight  of  the  old  con- 
tinent of  coarse  thinking,  and  are  sailing  a  sea 
where  purity  of  thought  and  expression  impreg- 
nate the  air  like  odors.  The  old  hero,  with  his 
lewdness  and  rhodomontade,  is  excused  from  the 
stage.  We  have  had  enough  of  him.  Even  Cyrano 
de  Bergerac  is  so  out  of  keeping  with  the  new 
notion  of  the  heroic,  that  the  translator  of  the 
drama  must  apologize  for  his  hero's  swagger. 
We  love  his  worth,  though  despising  his  theatrical 
air  and  acts.  We  are  done  with  the  actor,  and 
want  the  man.  And  this  new  hero  is  proof  of  a 
new  life  in  the  soul,  and,  therefore,  more  welcome 
than  the  glad  surprise  of  the  first  meadow-lark's 
song  upon  the  brown  meadows  of  the  early  spring. 
A  reader  need  not  be  profound,  but  may 
be  superficial,  and  yet  discover  that  Jean  Valjean 
is  fashioned  after  the  likeness  of  Jesus.  Michael 
Angelo  did  not  more  certainly  model  the  dome  of 
St.  Peter's  after  Brunelleschi's  dome  of  the 
Duomo  than  Hugo  has  modeled  his  Valjean 
after  Christ.  We  are  not  necessarily  aware  of  our- 
selves, nor  of  our  era,  until  something  discovers 
both  to  us,  as  we  do  not  certainly  know  sea  air 
when  we  feel  it.  I  doubt  if  most  men  would  rec- 
ognize the  tonic  of  sea  air  if  they  did  not  know 
the  sea  was  neighbor  to  them.  We  sight  the 


Jean  Valjean  13 

ocean,  and  then  know  the  air  is  flooded  with  a 
health  as  ample  as  the  seas  from  which  it  blows. 
So  we  can  not  know  our  intellectual  air  is  saturated 
with  Christ,  because  we  can  not  go  back.  We 
lack  contemporaneous  material  for  contrast.  We 
are,  ourselves,  a  part  of  the  age,  as  of  a  moving 
ship,  and  can  not  see  its  motion.  We  can  not 
realize  the  world's  yesterdays.  We  know  them, 
but  do  not  comprehend  them,  since  between  ap- 
prehending and  comprehending  an  epoch  lie  such 
wide  spaces.  "Quo  Vadis"  has  done  good  in  that 
it  has  popularized  a  realization  of  that  turpitude 
of  condition  into  which  Christianity  stepped  at  the 
morning  of  its  career;  for  no  lazar-house  is  so 
vile  as  the  Roman  civilization  when  Christianity 
began — God's  angel — to  trouble  that  cursed  pool. 
Christ  has  come  into  this  world's  affairs  unher- 
alded, as  the  morning  does  not  come;  for  who 
watches  the  eastern  lattices  can  see  the  morning 
star,  and  know  the  dawn  is  near.  Christ  has 
slipped  upon  the  world  as  a  tide  slips  up  the 
shores,  unnoted,  in  the  night;  and  because  we 
did  not  see  him  come,  did  not  hear  his  advent,  his 
presence  is  not  apparent.  Nothing  is  so  big  with 
joy  to  Christian  thought  as  the  absolute  omnipres- 
ence of  the  Christ  in  the  world's  life.  Stars  light 
their  torches  in  the  sky;  and  the  sky  is  wider  and 
higher  than  the  stars.  Christ  is  such  a  sky  to 
modern  civilization. 


H  A  Hero 

Plainly,  Jean  Valjean  is  meant  for  a  hero. 
Victor  Hugo  loves  heroes,  and  has  skill  and  in- 
clination to  create  them.  His  books  are  biog- 
raphies of  heroism  of  one  type  or  another.  No 
book  of  his  is  heroless.  In  this  attitude  he  dif- 
fers entirely  from  Thackeray  and  Hawthorne, 
neither  of  whom  is  particularly  enamored  of 
heroes.  Hawthorne's  romances  have  not,  in  the 
accepted  sense,  a  single  hero.  He  does  not  at- 
tempt building  a  character  of  central  worth.  He 
is  writing  a  drama,  not  constructing  a  hero.  In 
a  less  degree,  this  is  true  of  Thackeray.  He  truly 
loves  the  heroic,  and  on  occasion  depicts  it. 
Henry  Esmond  and  Colonel  Newcome  are 
mighty  men  of  worth,  but  are  exceptions  to 
Thackeray's  method.  He  pokes  fun  at  them  even. 
"Vanity  Fair"  he  terms  a  novel  without  a  hero. 
He  photographs  a  procession.  "The  Virginians" 
contains  no  character  which  can  aspire  to  cen- 
trality,  much  less  might.  He,  loving  heroes,  at- 
tempts concealing  his  passion,  and,  if  accused  of 
it,  denies  the  accusation.  After  reading  all  his 
writings,  no  one  could  for  a  moment  claim  that 
Thackeray  was  the  biographer  of  heroes.  He  is 
a  biographer  of  meanness,  and  times,  and  sham 
aristocracy  and  folks,  and  can,  when  he  cares  to 
do  so,  portray  heroism  lofty  as  tallest  mountains. 
With  Hugo  all  is  different.  He  will  do  nothing 
else  than  dream  and  depict  heroism  and  heroes. 


Jean  Valjean  15 

He  loves  them  with  a  passion  fervent  as  desert 
heats.  His  pages  are  ablaze  with  them.  Some- 
body lifting  up  the  face,  and  facing  God  in  some 
mood  or  moment  of  briefer  or  longer  duration — 
this  is  Hugo's  method.  In  "Toilers  of  the  Sea," 
Galliatt,  by  almost  superhuman  effort,  and  phys- 
ical endurance  and  fortitude  and  fertility  in 
resource,  defeats  octopus  and  winds  and  rocks  and 
seas,  and  in  lonely  triumph  pilots  the  wreck  home — 
and  all  of  this  struggle  and  conquest  for  love ! 
He  is  a  somber  hero,  but  a  hero  still,  with 
strength  like  the  strength  of  ten,  since  his  love 
is  as  the  love  of  a  legion.  The  power  to  do  is 
his,  and  the  nobility  to  surrender  the  woman  of 
his  love ;  and  there  his  nobility  darkens  into 
stoicism,  and  he  waits  for  the  rising  tide,  watch- 
ing the  outgoing  ship  that  bears  his  heart  away 
unreservedly — waits,  only  eager  that  the  tide 
ingulf  him. 

In  "Ninety-Three,"  the  mother  of  the  children 
in  the  burning  tower  is  heroine.  In  "By  Order 
of  the  King,"  Dea  is  heroic,  and  spotless  as 
"Elaine,  the  lily  maid  of  Astolat;"  and  Ursus,  a 
vagabond,  is  fatherhood  in  its  sweet  nobleness; 
and  Gwynplaine,  disfigured  and  deserted — a  little 
lad  set  ashore  upon  a  night  of  hurricane  and 
snow,  who,  finding  in  his  wanderings  a  babe  on 
her  dead  mother's  breast,  rescues  this  bit  of 
winter  storm-drift,  plodding  on  through  un- 


16  A  Hero 

tracked  snows,  freezing,  but  no  more  thinking  to 
drop  his  burden  than  the  mother  thought  to  de- 
sert it — Gwynplaine  is  a  hero  for  whose  deed  an 
epic  is  fitting.  Quasimodo,  the  hunchback  of 
Notre  Dame,  found,  after  long  years,  holding  in 
his  skeleton  arms  a  bit  of  woman's  drapery  and 
a  woman's  skeleton — Quasimodo,  hideous,  her- 
culean, hungry-hearted,  tender,  a  hunchback,  yet 
a  lover  and  a  man — who  denies  to  Quasimodo 
a  hero's  laurels?  In  "Les  Miserables"  are  heroes 
not  a  few.  Gavroche,  that  green  leaf  blown  about 
Paris  streets;  Fantine,  the  mother;  Eponine,  the 
lover;  Bishop  Bienvenu,  the  Christian;  Jean  Val- 
jean,  the  man, — all  are  heroic  folk.  Our  hearts 
throb  as  we  look  at  them.  Gavroche,  the  lad, 
dances  by  as  though  blown  past  by  the  gale. 
Fantine,  shorn  of  her  locks  of  gold;  Fantine,  with 
her  bloody  lips,  because  her  teeth  have  been  sold 
to  purchase  medicine  for  her  sick  child — 'her 
child,  yet  a  child  of  shame;  Fantine,  her  mother's 
love  omnipotent,  lying  white,  wasted,  dying, 
expectantly  looking  toward  the  door,  with  her 
heart  beating  like  a  wild  bird,  beating  with  its 
wings  against  cage-bars,  anxious  for  escape: 
Fantine,  watching  for  her  child  Cossette,  watch- 
ing in  vain,  but  watching;  Fantine,  dying,  glad 
because  Monsieur  Madeleine  has  promised  he  will 
care  for  Cossette  as  if  the  babe  were  his;  Fantine, 
dead,  with  her  face  turned  toward  the  door,  look- 


Jean  Valjean  17 

ing  in  death  for  the  coming  of  her  child, — Fantine 
affects  us  like  tears  and  sobbing  set  to  music. 
Look  at  her ;  for  a  heroine  is  dead.  And  Eponine, 
with  the  gray  dawn  of  death  whitening  her 
cheeks  and  gasping,  "If — when — if  when,"  now 
silent,  for  she  is  choked  by  the  rush  of  blood 
and  stayed  from  speech  by  fierce  stabs  of  pain, 
but  continuing,  "When  I  am  dead — a  favor — a 
favor,  Monsieur  Marius  [silence  once  again  to 
wrestle  with  the  throes  of  death] — a  favor — a  favor 
when  I  am  dead  [now  her  speech  runs  like  fright- 
ened feet] ,  if  you  will  kiss  me ;  for  indeed,  Monsieur 
Marius,  I  think  I  loved  you  a  little — I — I  shall 
feel — your  kiss — in  death."  Lie  quiet  in  the  dark- 
ening night,  Eponine !  Would  you  might  have  a 
queen's  funeral,  since  you  have  shown  anew  the 
moving  miracle  of  woman's  love ! 

Bishop  Bienvenu  is  Hugo's  hero  as  saint;  and 
we  can  not  deny  him  beauty  such  as  those  "en- 
skied  and  sainted"  wear.  This  is  the  romancist's 
tribute  to  a  minister  of  God ;  and  sweet  the  tribute 
is.  With  not  a  few,  the  bishop  is  chief  hero, 
next  to  Jean  Valjean.  He  is  redemptive,  like  the 
purchase  money  of  a  slave.  He  is  quixotic;  he  is 
not  balanced  always,  nor  always  wise ;  but  he  falls 
on  the  side  of  Christianity  and  tenderness  and 
goodness  and  love — a  good  way  to  fall,  if  one  is 
to  fall  at  all.  We  love  the  bishop,  and  can  not 
help  it.  He  was  good  to  the  poor,  tender  to  the 


i8  A  Hero 

erring,  illuminative  to  those  who  were  in  the 
moral  dark,  and  came  over  people  like  a  sunrise; 
crept  into  their  hearts  for  good,  as  a  child  creeps 
up  into  its  father's  arms,  and  nestles  there  like 
a  bird.  Surely  we  love  the  bishop.  He  is  a  hero 
saint.  To  be  near  him  was  to  be  neighborly  with 
heaven.  He  was  ever  minding  people  of  God. 
Is  there  any  such  office  in  earth  or  heaven?  To 
look  at  this  bishop  always  puts  our  heart  in  the 
mood  of  prayer,  and  what  helps  us  to  prayer  is 
a  celestial  benefit.  The  pertinent  fact  in  him  is, 
that  he  is  not  greatness,  but  goodness.  We  do 
not  think  of  greatness  when  we  see  him  or  hear 
him,  but  we  think  with  our  hearts  when  he  is  before 
our  eyes.  Goodness  is  more  marketable  than 
greatness,  and  more  necessary.  Goodness,  great- 
ness! Brilliancy  is  a  cheap  commodity  when  put 
on  the  counter  beside  goodness ;  and  Bishop  Bien- 
venu  is  a  romancer's  apotheosis  of  goodness,  and 
we  bless  him  for  this  deification. 

The  bishop  was  merchantman,  freighting  ships. 
His  wharves  are  wide,  his  fleet  is  great,  his  car- 
goes are  many.  Only  he  is  freighting  ships  for 
heaven.  No  bales  of  merchandise  nor  ingots  of 
iron,  but  souls  for  whom  Christ  died, — these  are 
his  cargoes;  and  had  you  asked  him,  "What 
work  to-day?"  a  smile  had  flooded  sunlight 
along  his  face  while  he  said,  "Freighting  souls 
with  God  to-day,  and  lading  cargoes  for  the 


Jean  Valjean  19 

skies."  This  is  royal  merchandise.  The  Doge 
of  Venice  annually  flung  a  ring  into  the  sea  as 
sign  of  Venice's  nuptials  with  the  Adriatic;  but 
Bishop  Bienvenu  each  day  wedded  himself  and 
the  world  to  heaven,  and  he  conies 

"O'er  my  ear  like  the  sweet  south, 
That  breathes  upon  a  bank  of  violets, 
Stealing  and  giving  odor." 

Hugo  paints  with  sunset  tints  and  with  light- 
ning's lurid  light;  his  contrasts  are  fierce,  his 
backgrounds  are  often  as  black  as  a  rain-cloud. 
He  paints  with  the  mad  rush  of  a  Turner.  He 
is  fierce  in  hates  and  loves.  He  does  nothing  by 
moderation.  Calmness  does  not  belong  to  him. 
He  is  tempestuous  always;  but  tempests  are  mag- 
nificent and  purifying  to  the  air.  Hugo  is  paint- 
ing, and  painting  heroes,  and  his  hero  of  heroes 
is  Valjean.  Jean  Valjean  is  conscience.  In  Mac- 
beth, conscience  is  warring  and  retributive.  In 
Richard  III,  conscience,  stifled  in  waking,  speaks 
in  dreams,  and  is  menace,  like  a  sword  swung  by 
a  maniac's  hands.  In  Arthur  Dimmesdale,  con- 
science is  lacerative.  In  Jean  Valjean,  conscience 
is  regulative,  creative,  constructive.  Jean  Val- 
jean is  conscience,  and  conscience  is  king.  What 
the  classic  'heroes  lacked,  Jean  Valjean  possesses. 

The  setting  of  this  character  is  entirely  mod- 
ern. "L,es  Miserables"  is  a  story  of  the  city  and 


20  A  Hero 

of  poverty,  and  can  not  be  dissociated  from  them 
by  any  wrench  of  thought,  however  violent. 
Not  that  urban  life  or  poverty  are  new  elements 
in  the  school  of  suffering.  They  are  not  new, 
as  pain  is  not  new.  This  is  the  difference.  In 
the  old  ages,  the  city  and  poverty  were  taken  as 
matters  of  course.  Comfort  was  not  a  classic 
consideration.  The  being  alive  to  conditions, 
sensitive  to  suffering,  eager  for  diminution  of  the 
world's  woes,  is  a  modern  thought,  a  Christ 
thought.  Sociology  is  an  application  of  Christ's 
teaching.  He  founded  this  science.  Rome  was 
the  monster  city  of  the  empire,  and  possibly  the 
monster  city  of  ancient  geography,  and  con- 
tained approximately,  at  its  most  populous  pe- 
riod, two  and  one  half  millions  of  inhabitants. 
Man  is  gregarious  as  the  flocks ;  he  seems  to  fear 
solitude,  and  flees  what  he  fears.  Certain  we  are 
that  in  America,  one  hundred  years  ago,  less  than 
one-thirtieth  of  the  population  was  in  cities;  now, 
about  one-third  is  in  city  communities;  and 
European  cities  are  outgrowing  American  cities. 
In  other  words,  at  the  present  time,  cities  are 
growing  in  a  ratio  totally  disproportionate  to  the 
growth  of  population;  and  this,  not  in  the  New 
World  simply,  but  in  the  Old.  London  has  nearly 
as  many  citizens  as  England  had  in  the  time  of 
the  Puritan  Revolution.  Men  are  nucleating  in 
a  fashion  foreboding,  but  certain.  A  symptom  of 


Jean  Valjean  21 

the  city  life  is,  that  he  who  is  city  bred  knows 
no  life  apart  from  his  city.  He  belongs  to  it  as 
essentially  as  the  Venetian  belonged  to  Venice. 
The  community  is  a  veritable  part  of  the  man's 
self.  Note  this  in  Jean  Valjean.  It  never  occurs 
to  him  to  leave  Paris.  Had  he  been  a  tree  rooted 
in  the  soil  along  the  Seine,  he  had  not  been  more 
stationary.  Men  live,  suffer,  die,  and  hug  their 
ugly  tenements  as  parasites  of  these  dilapidations, 
and  draw  their  life-saps  from  such  a  decayed 
trunk.  This  human  instinct  for  association  is 
mighty  in  its  impulsion.  Not  a  few,  but  mul- 
titudes, prefer  to  be  hungry  and  cold  and  live 
in  a  city  to  living  with  abundance  of  food 
and  raiment  in  the  country.  Any  one  can  see 
this  at  his  alley  or  in  his  neighboring  street. 
It  is  one  of  the  latent  insanities  of  the  soul. 
The  city  is  a  live  wire,  and  will  not  let  go  of 
him  who  grasps  it.  There  is  a  stream  of  life  pour- 
ing into  cities,  but  no  stream  flowing  into  the 
country.  The  tide  runs  up  the  shore  and  back 
into  the  deep  seas;  not  so  these  human  tides. 
They  pour  into  the  Dead  Sea  basin  of  the  urban 
community.  Jean  Valjean  was  a  complete  mod- 
ern in  his  indissoluble  identification  with  the  city. 
As  a  matter  of  course,  his  was  the  criminal  in- 
stinct, superadded  to  the  gregarious  instinct, 
which  hides  in  a  city  labyrinth  rather  than  the 
forests  of  the  Amazon.  Yet,  taken  all  in  all,  he 


22  A  Hero 

evidently  is  a  thorough  modern  in  his  urban  in- 
stinct. The  world  was  big,  and  he  had  gold  for 
passage  across  seas;  and  there  he  had,  in  reason, 
found  entire  safety;  but  such  a  thought  never 
entered  his  mind.  Paris  was  the  only  sea  he 
knew;  here  his  plans  for  escape  and  plans  for  life 
clung  tenaciously  as  a  dead  man's  hand. 

The  second  element  of  background  for  Jean 
Valjean  is  poverty.  The  people  of  this  drama  are 
named  "the  miserable  ones."  And  poverty  is 
modern  and  a  modern  question.  All  socialists, 
anarchists,  and  communists  talk  of  poverty;  this  is 
their  one  theme.  Superficial  social  reformers  make 
poverty  responsible  for  the  total  turpitude  of  men. 
Men  are  poor,  hence  criminal.  Jean  Valjean  is 
poor — miserably  poor;  sees  his  sister's  children 
hungry,  and  commits  crime,  is  a  thief;  becomes 
a  galley  slave  as  punitive  result.  Ergo,  poverty 
was  the  cause  of  crime,  and  poverty,  and  not  Val- 
jean, must  be  indicted;  so  runs  the  argument. 
This  conclusion  we  deny.  Let  us  consider. 
Poverty  is  not  unwholesome.  The  bulk  of  men 
are  poor,  and  always  have  been.  Poverty  is  no 
new  condition.  Man's  history  is  not  one  of  af- 
fluence, but  one  of  indigence.  This  is  a  patent 
fact.  But  a  state  of  lack  is  not  unwholesome,  but 
on  the  contrary  does  great  good.  Poverty  has  sup- 
plied the  world  with  most  of  the  kings  it  boasts  of. 
Palaces  have  not  cradled  the  kings  of  thought, 


Jean  Valjean  23 

service,  and  achievement.  What  greatest  poet  had 
luxury  for  a  father?  Name  one.  Poverty  is  the 
mother  of  kings.  Who  censures  poverty  censures 
the  home  from  whose  doors  have  passed  the  most 
illustrious  of  the  sons  of  men.  Christ's  was  a 
poverty  so  keen  and  so  parsimonious  that  Occi- 
dentals can  not  picture  it.  More,  current  social 
reformers  assume  that  the  poor  are  unhappy; 
though  if  such  reformers  would  cease  dreaming, 
and  learn  seeing,  they  would  reverse  their  creed. 
Riches  do  not  command  joy;  for  joy  is  not  a 
spring  rising  from  the  depths  where  gold  is 
found  and  gems  gathered.  Most  men  are  poor, 
and  most  men  are  happy,  or,  if  they  are  not,  they 
may  trace  their  sadness  to  sources  other  than  lack 
of  wealth.  The  best  riches  are  the  gifts  of  God, 
and  can  not  be  shut  off  by  any  sluicing;  the 
choicest  riches  of  the  soul,  such  as  knowledge  and 
usefulness  and  love  and  God,  are  not  subject  to 
the  tariff  of  gold.  Poverty,  we  conclude,  is  not 
in  itself  grievous.  Indeed,  there  are  in  poverty 
blessings  which  many  of  us  know,  and  from 
which  we  would  not  be  separated  without  keen 
regret.  But  penury  is  hard.  When  poverty 
pinches  like  winter's  night,  when  fuel  fails,  and 
hunger  is  our  company,  then  poverty  becomes 
harsh  and  unpalatable,  and  not  to  be  boasted  of; 
though  even  penury  has  spurred  many  a  sluggish 
life  to  conquering  moods.  When  a  man  lies  with 


24  A  Hero 

his  face  to  the  wall,  paralytic,  helpless,  useless,  a 
burden  to  himself  and  others,  and  hears  the  rub 
of  his  wife  washing  for  a  livelihood — and  he  loves 
her  so;  took  her  to  his  home  in  her  fair  girlhood, 
when  her  beauty  bloomed  like  a  garden  of  roses, 
and  promised  to  keep  her,  and  now  she  works 
for  him  all  day  and  into  the  dark  night,  and  loves 
to;  but  he  turns  his  face  to  the  wall,  puts  his  one 
movable  hand  against  his  face,  sobs  so  that  his 
tears  wash  through  his  fingers  and  wet  his  pillow 
as  with  driving  rain, — then  poverty  is  pitiful.  Or, 
when  one  sees  his  children  hungry,  tattered,  with 
lean  faces  and  eyes  staring  as  with  constant  fear ; 
sees  them  huddling  under  rags  or  cowering  at  a 
flicker  meant  for  flame, — then  poverty  is  hard ;  and 
then,  "The  poor  always  ye  have  with  you,"  said 
our  Christ,  which  remember  and  be  pitiful! 

But  such  penury,  even,  does  not  require  crime. 
Valjean  became  a  criminal  from  poverty ;  but  him- 
self felt  now,  as  the  days  slipped  from  his  life-store, 
that  crime  was  not  necessary.  Theft  is  bad  econom- 
ics. The  criminals  on  the  dockets  are  not  those 
pinched  with  poverty,  as  one  may  assure  himself 
if  he  gives  heed  to  criminal  dockets.  People  pre- 
fer crime  as  a  method  of  livelihood.  These  are 
criminals.  The  "artful  dodger,"  in  "Oliver 
Twist,"  is  a  picture  of  the  average  criminal. 
Honest  poverty  need  not  steal.  In  the  writer's 
own  city,  the  other  day,  a  man  accused  of  theft 


.    Jean  Valjean  25 

pleaded  his  children's  poverty  as  palliative  of  his 
crime ;  but  in  that  city .  was  abundant  help  for 
worthy  poverty.  That  man  lacked  an  absolute 
honesty.  He  and  his  could  have  been  fed  and 
clothed,  and  himself  maintained  his  manly  dignity 
and  uncorrupted  honesty.  To  blame  society  with 
criminality  is  a  current  method,  but  untrue  and 
unwise;  for  thus  we  will  multiply,  not  decimate, 
criminals.  The  honest  man  may  be  in  penury; 
but  he  will  have  help,  and  need  not  shelter  in  a 
jail.  Thus,  then,  these  two  items  of  modernity 
paint  background  for  Jean  Valjean's  portrait;  and 
in  Jean  Valjean,  To-day  has  found  a  voice. 

This  man  is  a  criminal  and  a  galley  slave,  with 
yellow  passport — his  name,  Jean  Valjean.  Hear 
his  story.  An.  orphan;  a  half-sullen  lad,  reared 
by  his  sister;  sees  her  husband  dead  on  a  bed  of 
rags,  with  seven  orphans  clinging  in  sobs  to  the 
dead  hands.  Jean  Valjean  labors  to  feed  this  mot- 
ley company;  denies  himself  bread,  so  that  he 
may  slip  food  into  their  hands;  has  moods  of 
stalwart  heroism;  and  never  having  had  a  sweet- 
heart— pity  him! — toils  on,  hopeless,  under  a  sky 
robbed  of  blue  and  stars ;  leading  a  life  plainly, 
wholly  exceptional,  and  out  of  work  in  a  winter 
when  he  was  a  trifle  past  twenty-six;  hears  his  sis- 
ter's children  crying,  "Bread,  bread,  give  bread;" 
rises  in  sullen  acerbity;  smites  his  huge  fist 
through  a  baker's  window,  and  steals  a  loaf;  is 


26  A  Hero 

arrested,  convicted,  sent  to  the  galleys,  and  herded 
with  galley  slaves;  attempts  repeated  escapes,  is 
retaken,  and  at  the  age  of  forty-six  shambles  out 
of  his  galley  slavery  with  a  yellow  passport,  certi- 
fying this  is  "a  very  dangerous  man;"  and  with 
a  heart  on  which  brooding  has  written  with  its 
biting  stylus  the  story  of  what  he  believes  to  be 
his  wrongs,  Jean  Valjean,  bitter  as  gall  against 
society,  has  his  hands  ready,  aye,  eager,  to  strike, 
no  matter  whom.  Looked  at  askance,  turned  from 
the  hostel,  denied  courtesy,  food,  and  shelter,  the 
criminal  in  him  rushes  to  the  ascendant,  and  he 
thrusts  the  door  of  the  bishop's  house  open.  Lis- 
ten, he  is  speaking  now,  look  at  him !  The  bishop 
deals  with  him  tenderly,  as  a  Christian  ought ;  senti- 
mentally, but  scarcely  wisely.  He  has  sentimental- 
ity rather  than  sentiment  in  his  kindness;  he  puts 
a  premium  on  Jean  Valjean  becoming  a  criminal 
again.  To  assume  everybody  to  be  good,  as  some 
philanthropists  do,  is  folly,  being  so  transparently 
false.  The  good  bishop — bless  him  for  his  good- 
ness!— who  prays  God  daily  not  to  lead  him  into 
temptation,  why  does  he  lead  this  sullen  criminal 
into  temptation?  Reformatory  methods  should  be 
sane.  The  bishop's  methods  were  not  sane.  He 
meant  well,  but  did  not  quite  do  well.  Jean  Val- 
jean, sleeping  in  a  bed  of  comfort,  grows  restless, 
wakens,  rises,  steals  what  is  accessible,  flees,  is 
arrested,  brought  back,  is  exonerated  by  the  bish- 


Jean  Valjean  27 

op's  tenderness,  goes  out  free ;  steals  from  the  little 
Savoyard,  cries  after  the  retreating  lad  to  restore 
him  his  coin,  fails  to  bring  him  back ;  fights  with 
self,  and  with  God's  good  help  rises  in  the  deep  dark 
of  night  from  the  bishop's  steps ;  walks  out  into 

a  day  of  soul,  trudges  into  the  city  of  M ,  to 

which  he  finds  admission,  not  by  showing  the 
criminal's  yellow  passport,  but  by  the  passport  of 
heroism,  having  on  entrance  rescued  a  child  from 
a  burning  building;  becomes  a  citizen,  invents  a 
process  of  manufacturing  jet,  accumulates  a  for- 
tune, spends  it  lavishly  in  the  bettering  of  the  city 
where  his  riches  were  acquired;  is  benefactor  to 
employee  and  city,  and  is  called  "Monsieur;"  and 
after  repeated  refusals,  becomes  "Monsieur  the 
Mayor;"  gives  himself  up  as  a  criminal  to  save 
a  man  unjustly  accused,  is  returned  to  the  galleys 
for  the  theft  of  the  little  Savoyard's  forty-sous 
coin ;  by  a  heroic  leap  from  the  yardarm,  escapes ; 
seeks  and  finds  Cossette,  devotes  his  life  to  shel- 
tering and  loving  her;  runs  his  gauntlet  of  re- 
peated perils  with  Javert,  grows  steadily  in  hero- 
ism, and  sturdy,  invigorating  manhood;  dies  a 
hero  and  a  saint,  and  an  honor  to  human  kind, — 
such  is  Jean  Valj can's  biography  in  meager  out- 
line. But  the  moon,  on  a  summer's  evening,  "a 
silver  crescent  gleaming  'mid  the  stars,"  appears 
hung  on  a  silver  cord  of  the  full  moon's  rim;  and, 
as  the  crescent  moon  is  not  the  burnished  silver 


28  A  Hero 

• 

of  the  complete  circle,  so  no  outline  can  include 
the  white,  bewildering  light  of  this  heroic  soul. 
Jean  Valjean  is  the  biography  of  a  redeemed  life. 
The  worst  life  contains  the  elements  of  redemp- 
tion, as  words  contain  the  possibility  of  poetry. 
He  was  a  fallen,  vicious,  desperate  man;  and  from 
so  low  a  level,  he  and  God  conspired  to  lift  him 
to  the  levels  where  the  angels  live,  than  which 
a  resurrection  from  the  dead  is  no  more  potent  and 
blinding  miracle.  Instead  of  giving  this  book  the 
caption,  "Jean  Valjean/'  it  might  be  termed  the 
"History  of  the  Redemption  of  a  Soul ;"  and  such  a 
theme  is  worthy  the  study  of  this  wide  world  of 
women  and  of  men. 

Initial  in  this  redemptive  work  was  the  good 
bishop,  whose  words,  "Jean  Valjean,  my  brother, 
you  belong  no  longer  to  evil,  but  to  good,"  never 
lost  their  music  or  might  to  Valjean's  spirit. 
Some  man  or  woman  stands  on  everybody's  road 
to  God.  And  Jean  Valjean,  with  the  bishop's 
words  sounding  in  his  ears — voices  that  will  not 
silence — goes  out  with  his  candlesticks,  goes 
trembling  out,  and  starts  on  his  anabasis  to  a  new 
life;  wandered  all  day  in  the  fields,  inhaled  the 
odors  of  a  few  late  flowers,  his  childhood  being 
thus  recalled;  and  when  the  sun  was  throwing 
mountain  shadows  behind  hillocks  and  pebbles,  as 
Jean  Valjean  sat  and  pondered  in  a  dumb  way, 
a  Savoyard  came  singing  on  his  way,  tossing  his 


Jean  Valjean  29 

bits  of  money  in  his  hands;  drops  a  forty-sous 
piece  near  Jean  Valjean,  who,  in  a  mood  of  in- 
explicable evil,  places  his  huge  foot  upon  it,  nor 
listened  to  the  child's  entreaty,  "My  piece,  mon- 
sieur;" and  eager  and  more  eager  grows  a  child 
whose  little  riches  were  invaded,  "My  piece,  my 
white  piece,  my  silver ;"  and  in  his  voice  are  tears — 
and  what  can  be  more  touching  than  a  child's 
voice  touched  with  tears?  "My  silver;"  and  the 
lad  shook  the  giant  by  the  collar  of  his  blouse — 
"I  want  my  silver,  my  forty-sous  piece" — and  be- 
gan to  cry.  A  little  lad  a-sobbing!  Jean  Valjean, 
you  who  for  so  many  years  "have  talked  but  little 
and  never  laughed;"  Jean  Valjean,  pity  the  child; 
give  him  his  coin.  You  were  bought  of  the  bishop 
for  good.  But  in  terrible  voice  he  shouts:  "Who 
is  there?  You  here  yet?  You  had  better  take 
care  of  yourself;"  and  the  little  lad  runs,  breath- 
less and  sobbing.  Jean  Valjean  hears  his  sobbing, 
but  made  no  move  for  restitution  until  the  little 
Savoyard  has  passed  from  sight  and  hearing, 
when,  waking  as  from  some  stupor,  he  rises, 
cries  wildly  through  the  night,  "Petit  Gervais! 
Petit  Gervais!"  and  listened,  and — no  answer. 
Then  he  ran,  ran  toward  restitution.  Too  late !  too 
late!  "Petit  Gervais!  Petit  Gervais!  Petit 
Gervais!"  and,  to  a  priest  passing,  "Monsieur, 
have  you  seen  a  child  go  by — a  little  fellow — Petit 
Gervais  is  his  name?"  And  he  calls  him  again 


30  A  Hero 

through  the  empty  night;  and  the  lad  hears  him 
not.  There  is  no  response,  and  for  the  first  time 
since  he  passed  to  the  galleys,  Jean  Valj can's 
heart  swells,  and  he  bursts  into  tears;  for  he  was 
horrified  at  himself.  His  hardness  had  mastered 
him,  even  when  the  bishop's  tenderness  had 
thawed  his  winter  heart.  Jean  Valj  can  was  now 
afraid  'of  himself,  which  is  where  moral  strength 
has  genesis.  He  goes  back — back  where?  No 
matter,  wait.  He  sees  in  his  thought — in  his 
thought  he  sees  the  bishop,  and  wept,  shed  hot 
tears,  wept  bitterly,  with  more  weakness  than  a 
woman,  with  more  terror  than  a  child,  and  his 
life  seemed  horrible;  and  he  walks — whither? 
No  matter.  But,  past  midnight,  the  stage-driver 
saw,  as  he  passed,  a  man  in  the  attitude  of  prayer, 
kneeling  upon  the  pavement  in  the  shadow  before 
the  bishop's  door;  and  should  you  have  spoken, 
"Jean  Valjean !"  he  would  not  have  answered  you. 
He  would  not  have  heard.  He  is  starting  on  a 
pilgrimage  of  manhood  toward  God.  He  saw  the 
bishop;  now  he  sees  God,  and  here  is  hope;  for 
so  is  God  the  secret  of  all  good  and  worth,  a 
thing  to  be  set  down  as  the  axiom  of  religion  and 
life.  A  conscience  long  dormant  is  now  become 
regnant.  Jean  Valjean  is  a  man  again! 

Goodness  begets  goodness.  He  climbed;  and 
the  mountain  air  and  azure  and  fountains  of  clear 
waters,  spouting  from  cliffs  of  snow  and  the  far 


Jean  Valjean  31 

altitudes,  fed  his  spirit.  God  and  he  kept  com- 
pany, and,  as  is  meet,  goodness  seemed  native 
to  him  as  lily  blooms  to  lily  stems.  God  was  his 
secret,  as  God  is  the  secret  of  us  all.  To  scan 
his  process  of  recovery  is  worth  while.  The 
bishop  reminded  him  of  God.  Goodness  and  love 
in  man  are  wings  to  help  us  soar  to  where  we 
see  that  service,  love,  and  goodness  are  in  God — 
see  that  God  is  good  and  God  is  love.  Seeing 
God,  Jean  Valjean  does  good.  Philanthropy  is 
native  to  him;  gentleness  seems  his  birthright; 
his  voice  is  low  and  sweet;  his  face — the  helpless 
look  to  it  for  help;  his  eyes  are  dreamy,  like  a 
poet's;  he  loves  books;  he  looks  not  manufac- 
turer so  much  as  he  looks  poet;  he  passes  good 
on  as  if  it  were  coin  to  be  handled ;  he  suffers  nor 
complains ;  his  silence  is  wide,  like  that  of  the  still 
night;  he  frequently  walks  alone  and  in  the 
country;  he  becomes  a  god  to  Fantine,  for  she 
had  spit  upon  him,  and  he  had  not  resented;  he 
adopts  means  for  the  rescue  of  Cossette.  In  him, 
goodness  moves  finger  from  the  lips,  breaks 
silence,  and  becomes  articulate.  Jean  Valjean  is 
brave,  magnanimous,  of  sensitive  conscience, 
hungry-hearted,  is  possessed  of  the  instincts  of 
motherhood,  bears  being  misjudged  without  com- 
plaint, is  totally  forgetful  of  himself,  and  is  absolute 
in  his  loyalty  to  God — qualities  which  lift  him  into 
the  elect  life  of  manhood. 


32  A  Hero 

Jean  Valjean  was  brave.  He  and  fear 
never  met.  The  solitary  fear  he  knew  was  fear 
of  himself,  and  lest  he  might  not  live  for  good 
as  the  bishop  had  bidden  him;  but  fear  from 
without  had  never  crossed  his  path.  His  was  the 
bravery  of  conscience.  His  strength  was  pro- 
digious, and  he  scrupled  not  to  use  it.  Self- 
sparing  was  no  trait  of  his  character.  Like  an- 
other hero  we  have  read  of,  he  would  "gladly 
spend  and  be  spent"  for  others,  and  bankrupt 
himself,  if  thereby  he  might  make  others  rich. 
There  is  a  physical  courage,  brilliant  as  a  shock 
of  armies,  which  feels  the  conflict  and  leaps  to 
it  as  the  storm-waves  leap  upon  the  sword  edges 
of  the  cliffs — a  courage  which  counts  no  odds. 
There  is  another  courage,  moral  rather  than 
physical.  Valjean  possessed  both,  with  moral 
courage  in  ascendency.  He  has  the  agility  and 
strength  sometimes  found  in  criminals.  He  is 
now  in  the  galleys  for  life.  One  day,  while  en- 
gaged in  furling  sail,  a  sailor  has  toppled  from 
the  yard;  but  in  falling  caught  a  rope,  but  hangs, 
swinging  violently,  like  some  mad  pendulum. 
The  height  is  dizzying.  Death  seems  certain, 
when  a  convict,  clad  in  red,  and  with  a  green  cap, 
runs  up  for  rescue,  lets  himself  down  alongside 
of  the  swaying  sailor,  now  in  the  last  extremity 
of  weakness,  and  ready  to  drop  like  a  winter  leaf. 
Valjean  (for  it  is  he)  oscillates  violently  to  and 


Jean  Valjean  33 

fro,  while  the  throng  below  watch  breathlessly. 
His  peril  is  incredible,  but  his  is  a  bravery  which 
does  not  falter,  and  a  skill  which  equals  bravery. 
Valjean  is  swayed  in  the  wind  as  the  swaying 
sailor,  until  he  catches  him  in  his  arm,  makes 
him  fast  to  the  rope,  clambers  up,  reaches  the 
yard,  hauls  up  the  sailor,  and  carries  him  to  a 
place  of  safety.  And  the  throng  below,  breath- 
less till  now,  applauded  and  cried,  "This  man 
must  be  pardoned."  Then  it  is  that  he,  free  once 
more,  leaps  down — falls  from  the  dizzying 
height,  the  multitude  thinks — leaps  down  into 
the  seas,  and  wins  liberty.  Jean  Valjean  is 
heroic.  His  moral  courage,  which  is  courage  at 
its  noon,  is  discovered  best  in  his  rescue  of 
Fauchelevent,  old,  and  enemy — an  enmity  en- 
gendered by  Madeleine's  prosperity — to  Monsieur 
Madeleine.  The  old  man  has  fallen  under  his 
cart,  and  is  being  surely  crushed  to  death.  The 
mayor  joins  the  crowd  gathered  about  the  unfor- 
tunate car-man;  offers  a  rising  price  for  one  who 
will  go  under  the  cart  and  rescue  the  old  man. 
Javert  is  there — keen  of  eye  and  nostril  as  a 
vulture — and  Jean  Valjean  is  his  prey.  He  be- 
lieves the  mayor  to  be  Jean  Valjean,  and,  as 
the  mayor  urges  some  one  to  rescue  the  perishing 
man,  says,  with  speech  cold  as  breath  from  a 
glacier,  "I  have  known  but  one  man  who  was 

equal  to  this  task,  and  he  was  a  convict  and  in 
3 


34  A  Hero 

the  galleys."  The  old  man  moans,  "How  it 
crushes  me!"  and,  hearing  that  cry,  under  the 
cart  the  mayor  crawls;  and  while  those  beside 
hold  their  breath,  he,  lying  flat  under  the  weight, 
lifts  twice,  ineffectually,  and,  with  one  herculean 
effort,  lifts  again,  and  the  cart  slowly  rises,  and 
many  willing  hands  helping  from  without,  the  old 
man  is  saved;  and  Monsieur  Madeleine  arises, 
pale,  dripping  with  sweat,  garments  muddy  and 
torn,  while  the  old  man  whom  he  has  rescued 
kisses  his  knees  and  calls  him  the  good  God. 
And  the  mayor  looks  at  Javert  with  tranquil  eye, 
though  knowing  full  well  that  this  act  of  generous 
courage  in  the  rescue  of  an  enemy  has  doomed 
himself.  This  is  moral  courage  of  celestial  order. 

His  magnanimity  is  certainly  apparent, — in 
the  rescue  of  his  enemy,  Fauchelevent ;  in  his 
release  of  his  arch-enemy,  Javert ;  in  his  presence 
within  the  barricade  to  protect  Marius,  who  had, 
as  a  lover,  robbed  him  of  the  one  blossom  that 
had  bloomed  in  the  garden  of  his  heart,  save  only 
the  passing  bishop  and  the  abiding  God.  No  petti- 
ness is  in  him.  He  loves  and  serves  after  a  fashion 
learned  of  Christ.  If  compelled  to  admire  his 
courage,  we  are  no  less  compelled  to  pay  hom- 
age to  his  magnanimity. 

His  was  a  hungry  heart.  Love  he  had  never 
known ;  he  had  never  had  a  sweetheart.  And  now 
all  pent-up  love  of  a  long  life  empties  its  precious 


Jean  Valjean  35 

ointment  on  the  head  of  Cossette.  He  was  all 
the  mother  she  ever  knew  or  needed  to  know. 
Heaven  made  her  rich  in  such  maternity  as  his. 
Mother  instinct  is  in  all  good  lives,  and  belongs 
to  man.  Maternity  and  paternity  are  met  in  the 
best  manhood.  The  tenderness  of  motherhood 
must  soften  a  man's  touch  to  daintiness,  like  an 
evening  wind's  caress,  before  fatherhood  is  per- 
fect. All  his  youthhood,  which  knew  not  any 
woman's  lips  to  kiss;  all  his  manhood,  which  had 
never  shared  a  hearth  with  wife  or  child, — all  this 
unused  tenderness  now  administers  to  the  wants 
of  this  orphan,  Cossette.  His  rescue  of  her  from 
the  Thenardiers  is  poetry  itself.  He  had  the  in- 
stincts of  a  gentleman.  The  doll  he  brought  her 
for  her  first  Christmas  gift  was  forerunner  of  a  thou- 
sand gifts  of  courtesy  and  love.  See,  too,  the  mourn- 
ing garments  he  brought  and  laid  beside  her  bed 
the  first  morning  he  brought  her  to  his  garret, 
and  watched  her  slumber  as  if  he  had  been  ap- 
pointed by  God  to  be  her  guardian  angel.  To 
him  life  henceforth  meant  Cossette.  He  was  her 
servant  always.  For  her  he  fought  for  his  life  as 
if  it  had  been  an  unutterable  good.  He  lost  him- 
self, which  is  the  very  crown  of  motherhood's  de- 
votion. He  was  himself  supplanted  in  her  affec- 
tions by  her  lover,  Marius,  and  his  heart  was 
stabbed  as  if  by  poisoned  daggers;  for  was  not 
Cossette  wife,  daughter,  sister,  brother,  mother, 


36  A  Hero 

father,  friend — all?  But  if  his  heart  was  breaking, 
she  never  guessed  it.  He  hid  his  hurt,  though 
dying  of  heartbreak. 

Then,  too,  Jean  Valjean  is  misjudged,  and  by 
those  who  should  have  trusted  him  as  they 
trusted  God.  We  find  it  hard  to  be  patient  with 
Marius,  and  are  not  patient  with  Cossette.  Her 
selfishness  is  not  to  be  condoned.  Her  contrition 
and  her  tears  come  too  late.  Though  Valjean 
forgives  her,  we  do  not  forgive  her.  She  de- 
serves no  forgiveness.  Marius's  honor  was  of  the 
amateur  order,  lacking  depth  and  breadth.  He 
was  superficial,  judging  by  hearing  rather  than  by 
eyes  and  heart.  We  have  not  patience  to  linger 
with  his  wife  and  him,  but  push  past  them  to  the 
hero  spirit,  whom  they  have  not  eyes  to  see  nor 
hearts  to  understand.  Jean  Valjean  misjudged, 
and  by  Marius  and  Cossette!  Impossible!  Javert 
may  do  that;  Fantine,  not  knowing  him,  may  do 
that,  but  once  knowing  him  she  had  as  lief  dis- 
trusted day  to  bring  the  light  as  to  have  dis- 
trusted him.  Misjudged,  and  by  those  he  loved 
most,  suffered  for,  more  than  died  for!  Poor 
Valjean!  This  wakes  our  pity  and  our  tears. 
Before,  we  have  watched  him,  and  have  felt  the 
tug  of  battle  on  him ;  now  the  mists  fall,  and  we 
put  our  hands  before  our  eyes  and  weep.  This 
saint  of  God  misjudged  by  those  for  whom  he 
lives!  Yet  this  is  no  solitary  pathos.  Were  all 


Jean  Valjean  37 

hearts'  history  known,  we  should  know  how  many 
died  misjudged.  All  Jean  Valjean  does  has  been 
misinterpreted.  We  distrust  more  and  more  cir- 
cumstantial evidence.  It  is  hideous.  No  jury 
ought  to  convict  a  man  on  evidence  of  circum- 
stances. Too  many  tragedies  have  been  enacted 
because  of  such.  Marius  thought  he  was  discern- 
ing and  of  a  sensitive  honor.  He  thought  it  evi- 
dent that  Jean  Valjean  had  slain  Javert,  and  had 
slain  Monsieur  Madeleine,  whose  fortune  he  has 
offered  as  Cossette's  marriage  portion.  Poor 
Jean  Valjean!  You  a  murderer,  a  marauder — 
you!  Marius  acts  with  frigid  honor.  Valjean 
will  not  live  with  Marius  and  Cossette,  being  too 
sensitive  therefor,  perceiving  himself  distrusted 
by  Marius,  but  comes  to  warm  his  hands  and 
heart  at  the  hearth  of  Cossette's  presence;  and  he 
is  stung  when  he  sees  no  fire  in  the  reception-ru  m. 
The  omission  he  can  not  misinterpret.  He  goes 
again,  and  the  chairs  are  removed.  Marius  may 
have  honor,  but  his  honor  is  cruel,  like  an  inquisi- 
tor with  rack  and  thumbscrew;  and  then  Jean 
Valjean  goes  no  more,  but  day  by  day  suns  his 
heart  by  going  far  enough  to  look  at  the  house 
where  Cossette  is — no  more;  then  his  eyes  are 
feverish  to  catch  sight  of  her  habitation  as 
parched  lips  drink  at  desert  springs.  Misjudged! 
O,  that  is  harder  to  bear  than  all  his  hurts! 
Then  we  will  not  say  of  Valjean,  "He  has 


38  A  Hero- 

conscience,"  but  rather,  we  will  say,  "He  is  con- 
science/' Valjean's  struggle  with  conscience  is 
one  of  the  majestic  chapters  of  the  world's  litera- 
ture, presenting,  as  it  does,  the  worthiest  and  pro- 
foundest  study  of  Christian  conscience  given  by 
any  dramatist  since  Christ  opened  a  new  chapter 
for  conscience  in  the  soul.  Monsieur  Madeleine, 
the  mayor,  is  rich,  respected,  honored,  is  a  savior 
of  society,  sought  out  by  the  king  for  political  pre- 
ferment. One  shadow  tracks  him  like  a  night- 
mare. Javert  is  on  his  track,  instinct  serving  him 
for  reason.  At  last,  Javert  himself  thinks  Jean 
Valjean  has  been  found;  for  a  man  has  been  ar- 
rested, is  to  be  tried,  will  doubtless  be  convicted, 
seeing  evidence  is  damning.  Now,  Monsieur 

Madeleine,  mayor  of  M ,  your  fear  is  all  but 

ended.  An  anodyne  will  be  administered  to  your 
pain.  Jean  Valjean  has  known  many  a  struggle. 
He  thought  his  fiercest  battles  fought;  but  all  his 
yesterdays  of  conflict  are  as  play  contests  and 
sham  battles  matched  with  this.  Honor,  useful- 
ness, long  years  of  service,  love,  guardianship  of 
Cossette,  and  fealty  to  a  promise  given  a  dying 
mother — all  beckon  to  him.  He  is  theirs;  and 
has  he  not  suffered  enough?  More  than  enough. 
Let  this  man  alone,  that  is  all.  Let  him  alone! 
He  sees  it.  Joy  shouts  in  his  heart,  "Javert  w^ 
leave  me  in  quiet."  "Let  us  not  interfere  with 
God;"  and  his  resolution  is  formed.  But  con- 


Jean  Valjean  39 

science  looks  into  his  face.  Ha!  the  bishop,  too, 
is  beside  him.  Conscience  speaks,  and  is  saying, 
"Let  the  real  Valjean  go  and  declare  himself." 
This  is  duty.  Conscience  speaks,  and  his  words 
are  terrible,  "Go,  declare  thyself."  Jean  Valj can's 
sin  is  following  him.  That  evening  he  had 
robbed  Petit  Gervais;  therefore  he  is  imperiled. 
Sin  finds  man  out.  But  the  fight  thickens,  and 
Valjean  thinks  to  destroy  the  mementos  of  his 
past,  and  looks  fearfully  toward  the  door,  bolted 
as  it  is,  and  gathers  from  a  secret  closet  his  old 
blue  blouse,  an  old  pair  of  trousers,  an  old 
haversack,  and  a  great  thorn  stick,  and  inconti- 
nently flings  them  into  the  flames.  Then,  noticing 
the  silver  candlesticks,  the  bishop's  gifts,  "These, 
too,  must  be  destroyed,"  he  says,  and  takes  them 
in  his  hands,  and  stirs  the  fire  with  one  of  the 
candlesticks,  when  he  hears  a  voice  clamoring, 
"Jean  Valjean!  Jean  Valjean!  Jean  Valjean!" 
Conscience  and  a  battle,  but  the  battle  was  not 
lost;  for  you  see  him  in  the  prisoners'  dock,  de- 
claring, "I  am  Jean  Valjean;"  and  those  of  the 
court  dissenting,  he  persisted,  declared  his  recog- 
nition of  some  galley  prisoners,  urging  still,  "I 
am  Jean  Valjean;  you  see  clearly  that  I  am  Jean 
Valjean;"  and  those  who  saw  and  heard  him  were 
dazed ;  and  he  said :  "All  who  are  here  think  me 
worthy  of  pity,  do  you  not?  Do  you  not?  Great 
God!  When  I  think  of  what  I  was  on  the  point 


40  A  Hero 

of  doing,  I  think  myself  worthy  of  envy;"  and 
he  was  gone.  And  next,  Javert  is  seizing  him 
fiercely,  brutally,  imperiously,  as  a  criminal  for 
whom  there  is  no  regard.  With  this  struggle 
of  conscience  and  its  consequent  victory,  "The 
Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade"  becomes  tawdry 
and  garish.  The  sight  moves  us  as  the  majestic 
minstrelsy  of  seas  in  tempest.  No  wonder  that 
they  who  looked  at  Valjean,  as  he  stood  de- 
claring himself  to  be  the  real  Valjean,  were  blinded 
with  a  great  light. 

And  his  heart  is  so  hungry,  and  his  loyalty  to 
God  so  urgent  and  so  conquering.  Jean  Valjean 
has  suffered  much.  Ulysses,  buffeted  by  wars 
and  stormy  seas,  has  had  a  life  of  calm  as  com- 
pared with  this  new  hero.  Ulysses'  battles  were 
from  without;  Valjean's  battles  were  from  within. 
But  if  he  has  suffered  greatly,  he  has  also  been 
greatly  blessed.  Struggle  for  goodness  against  sin 
is  its  own  reward.  We  do  not  give  all  and  get 
nothing.  There  are  compensations.  Recom- 
pense of  reward  pursues  goodness  as  foam  a  ves- 
sel's track.  If  Jean  Valjean  loved  Cossette  with 
a  passion  such  as  the  angels  know;  if  she  was  his 
sun,  and  made  the  spring,  there  was  a  sense  in 
which  Cossette  helped  Valjean.  There  was  re- 
sponse, not  so  much  in  the  return  of  love  as  in 
that  he  loved  her;  and  his  love  for  her  helped  him 
in  his  dark  hours,  helped  him  when  he  needed 


Jean  Valjean  41 

help  the  most,  helped  him  on  with  God.  He  needs 
her  to  love,  as  our  eyes  need  the  fair  flowers  and 
the  blue  sky.  His  life  was  not  empty,  and  God 
had  not  left  himself  without  witness  in  Jean  Val- 
jean's  life ;  for  he  had  had  his  love  for  Cossette. 

But  he  is  bereft.  Old  age  springs  on  him  sud- 
denly, as  Javert  had  done  in  other  days.  He  has, 
apparently  without  provocation,  passed  from 
strength  to  decrepitude.  Since  he  sees  Cossette 
no  more,  he  has  grown  gray,  stooped,  decrepit. 
There  is  no  morning  now,  since  he  does  not  see 
Cossetre.  You  have  seen  him  walking  to  the 
corner  to  catch  sight  of  her  house.  How  feeble 
he  is!  Another  day,  walking  her  way,  but  not 
so  far;  and  the  next,  and  the  next,  walking;  but 
the  last  day  he  goes  scarce  beyond  his  own 
threshold.  And  now  he  can  not  go  down  the 
stairs;  now  he  is  in  his  own  lonely  room,  alone. 
He  sees  death  camping  in  his  silent  chamber,  but 
feels  no  fright.  No,  no !  rather, 

"Death,  like  a  friend's  voice  from  a  distant  field 
Approaching,  called. 

For  sure  no  gladlier  does  the  stranded  wreck 
See,  through  the  gray  skirts  of  a  lifting  squall, 
The  boat  that  bears  the  hope  of  life  approach 
To  save  the  life  despaired  of,  than  he  saw 
Death  dawning  on  him,  and  the  close  of  all." 

But  Cossette,  Cossette!  To  see  her  once,  just 
once,  only  once !  To  touch  her  hand — O  that  were 


42  A  Hero 

heaven!  But  he  says  to  his  hea'rt,  "I  shall  not 
touch  her  hand,  and  I  shall  not  see  her  face — 
no  more,  no  more!"  And  the  little  garments  he 
brought  her  when  he  took  her  from  her  slavery 
with  the  Thenardiers,  there  they  are  upon  his  bed, 
where  he  can  touch  them,  as  if  they  were  black 
tresses  of  the  woman  he  had  loved  and  lost.  The 
bishop's  candlesticks  are  lit.  He  is  about  to  die, 
and  writes  in  his  poor,  sprawling  fashion  to 
Cossette — writes  to  her.  He  fronts  her  always,  as 
the  hills  front  the  dawn.  He  ceases,  and  sobs 
like  a  breaking  heart.  O !  "She  is  a  smile  that 
has  passed  over  me.  I  shall  never  see  her  again !" 
And  the  door  dashes  open;  Marius  and  Cossette 
are  come.  Joy,  joy  to  the  old  heart!  Jean  Val- 
jean  thinks  it  is  heaven's  morning.  Marius  has 
discovered  that  Jean  Valjean  is  not  his  murderer, 
but  his  savior;  that  he  has,  at  imminent  peril  of 
his  life,  through  the  long,  oozy  quagmire  of  the 
sewer,  with  his  giant  strength,  borne  him  across 
the  city,  saved  him;  and  now,  too  late,  Marius 
began  to  see  in  Jean  Valjean  "a  strangely  lofty 
and  saddened  form,"  and  has  come  to  take  this 
great  heart  home.  But  God  will  do  that  himself. 
Jean  Valjean  is  dying.  He  looks  at  Cossette  as 
if  he  would  take  a  look  which  would  endure 
through  eternity,  kisses  a  fold  of  her  garment,  and 
half  articulates,  "It — is — nothing  to  die;"  then 
suddenly  rises,  walks  to  the  wall,  brings  back  a 


Jean  Valjean  43 

crucifix,  lays  it  near  his  hand.  "The  Great 
Martyr,"  he  says;  fondles  Marius  and  Cossette; 
sobs  to  Cossette,  "Not  to  see  you  broke  my 
heart;"  croons  to  himself,  "You  love  me;"  puts 
his  hands  upon  their  heads  in  a  caress,  saying, 
"I  do  not  see  clearly  now."  Later  he  half  whis- 
pered, "I  see  a  light!"  And  a  man  and  woman 
are  raining  kisses  on  a  dead  man's  hands.  And 
on  that  blank  stone,  over  a  nameless  grave  in  the 
cemetery  of  Pere  la  Chaise,  let  some  angel  sculp- 
tor chisel,  "Here  lies  Jean  Valjean,  Hero." 


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